The Times They Were A-Changin

Transcription

Empirical Musicology Review
Vol. 10, No. 3, 2015
“The Times They Were A-Changin’”:
A Database-Driven Approach to the Evolution of Harmonic
Syntax in Popular Music from the 1960s
HUBERT LÉVEILLÉ GAUVIN [1]
Schulich School of Music, McGill University
ABSTRACT: The goal of this research is to investigate the pitch structures of
popular music in the 1960s through a large corpus study in order to identify any
consistent changes in harmonic and tonal syntax. More specifically, two studies
based on the Billboard DataSet (Burgoyne, Wild & Fujinaga, 2011; Burgoyne, 2011),
a new corpus presenting transcriptions for more than 700 songs, are presented. The
first study looks at the incidence of multi-tonic songs throughout the decade, while
the second study focuses on the incidence of flat-side harmonies (e.g. bIII, bVI, and
bVII) over the same period of time. While no difference was observed in the
frequency of multi-tonic songs, the study showed a significant increase in the
incidence of flat-side harmonies during the second half of the decade.
Submitted 2014 September 16; accepted 2015 April 9.
KEYWORDS: popular music, corpus, Billboard, harmony, modulation
IN January 1964 Bob Dylan released “The Times They Are A-Changin,” a politically-charged protest
song encouraging changes in American society. Indeed the 1960s were a time of great political, but
also sociological and cultural changes, accompanied by equally important developments in popular
music. Many music scholars have addressed the attitudinal shift associated with this period, noting that
“[r]ock musicians no longer aspire[d] so much to be professionals and craftspeople” but “artists”
(Covach, 2006, p. 38) and that the “later 1960s brought a respect for popular music and a popularity
for complex artistic experimentation that had not been matched in any previous era” (Wald, 2009, p.
246).
In recent years, theorists have highlighted specific paradigms of pitch structures in popular
music, especially associated with rock. Their observations include an increasing use of modal
harmonies and modally-derived chord progressions (Moore, 1992, 1995; Biamonte, 2010), plagal
progressions (Temperley, 2011) and an increasing use of chord loops (Tagg, 2009). While these
authors seem to agree, at least partially, on some harmonic tendencies that characterize rock music, it
is difficult to relate these new idioms to the early pop and rock ‘n’ roll music that predates the
aforementioned shift. Even though attempts have been made in the past to empirically map these
progressions onto a specific timeline (Everett, 2004; de Clercq & Temperley, 2011, 2013), no previous
research has focused on change within a specific decade.
The goal of this research is to investigate pitch-based structures in this repertoire through a
large corpus study in order to identify any consistent changes in harmonic and tonal syntax. The
Billboard DataSet (Burgoyne, Wild & Fujinaga, 2011; Burgoyne, 2011) provides a collection of 743
transcriptions of music popular in the United States between 1958 and 1991.[2] The corpus was
originally created to “enable significant advances in the quality of training for audio-chord-recognition
algorithms” as well as to engage in “computational musicology” (Burgoyne, et al., 2011, p. 633). It
consists of a random sampling from all the songs that made the weekly Billboard 100 charts
throughout this time period. The content of the corpus is multigenre, primary consisting of rock ‘n’
roll, pop/rock, r ‘n’ b/soul, coutry & western, vocal, and folk material. Since Billboard is an American
standard record chart, most of the songs come from the U.S.A, the U.K., and Canada, though other
countries can be represented as well. The transcribing team consisted of more than two dozen people,
all university-trained jazz musicians. Each selected song was annotated separately by two different
transcribers, then the analyses were reconciled by a third.
Empirically oriented surveys of popular music are becoming more frequent. Perhaps the most
important study for the field in recent years is that by de Clercq and Temperley (2011). They presented
a 100-song corpus based on Rolling Stone Magazine’s “500 Greatest Songs of All Time,” compiled in
2004.[3] Their study focused primarily on chord frequency, frequency of root motions, and patterns of
co-occurrence between chords.
Although the Billboard DataSet focuses on popular music from the same time period as the
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Rolling Stone corpus, its size is significantly larger. In fact, it is, to my knowledge, the largest
collection of methodologically curated transcribed popular music annotations. Furthermore, it focuses
on songs that were considered popular in their respective time, instead of songs that were considered
important in retrospect. As such, it appeared to be the best available tool for the present research.
Two different aspects of the above-mentioned shift were tested in two different studies, the
first dealing with modulation and the second with chord frequency. Since the primary focus of this
research is the evolution of harmonic syntax throughout the 1960s, the time period under consideration
is 1958 to 1971. These 14 years constitute a sub-corpus of 292 songs. A detailed list of the songs
featured in this sub-corpus can be found in the Appendix.
The first study focuses on modulation in the 1960s. Different scholars have discussed
modulatory devices in popular music, especially in rock. Everett (1997) mentioned how the “truck
driver’s” modulation by semitone can be motivated by various reasons, such as “signaling
transcendence in a story line,” “portray[ing] […] the passage of time,” or “provid[ing] a change of
colour for the ‘big finish.’” (p. 151). Similarly, Osborn (2013) discussed how “experimental rock
artists regularly end songs with completely new material designed to be more memorable than
anything previously presented—the terminal climax” and how these “dramatic endings come about
through any combination of amplitudinal climax, harmonic modulation, and changing meter. ” (p. 23).
Alternatively, Tagg (2009) noted how dominant modulations are so “indicative of European art music
that they can be inserted as genre synecdoches in a context of non-‐classical harmony (e.g. pop and
rock) to connote, seriously or humorously, high art rather than low-brow entertainment, deep feelings
and the transcendent rather than the superficial and ephemeral” (p. 111). Considering the premise
introduced earlier in this paper that songwriters tried to move from craftspeople to artists during this
time period, it is reasonable to think that different devices might have been experimented with to
achieve this goal, including modulation. As such, the proposed theory for this first study is that the
incidence of songs featuring modulations increased through the decade.
The second study focuses on the frequency of chords bIII, bVI, and bVII[4], the so-called
“flat-side” harmonies. As Everett (2001) mentions, “[f]lat-side scale degrees appear primarily within
the minor key […] and through mode mixture in the major key.” (p. 53). De Clercq and Temperley
(2011) investigated chord frequency, frequency of root motions, patterns of co-occurrence between
chords, and melodic organization in popular music. Their findings include a dramatic shift between
chords used during the 1950s and the 1960s to 2000s, the 1950s being “completely dominated” (p. 63)
by I, IV, and V. Conversely, the authors discussed how, in the 1960s onward, flat-side harmonies bVII,
bIII, and bVI “emerge as a group in which all three pairs are highly correlated” (p. 66). These findings
match the modal characteristics associated with rock (Moore, 1992, 1995; Everett, 2004; Biamonte,
2010), a genre that became very popular during the late 1960s. Taking into consideration this shift
between the 1950s and the later decades, the proposed theory for this second study is that, as we go
further into the decade, chords bIII, bVI and bVII increased in frequency.
HYPOTHESES
Formally, the hypothesis for the first study is:
H1
Songs featuring more than one tonal center will increase in frequency over the studied
time period of 1958-1971.
For the second study, the formal hypothesis is:
H2
Songs featuring flat-side harmonies (i.e. bIII, bVI, and bVII) will increase in frequency
over the studied time period of 1958-1971.
To anticipate the conclusions, the results were inconsistent with the first hypothesis, but consistent
with the second.
METHOD
Parsing the Database
The present study relies on the Billboard DataSet, which presents a corpus of harmonic transcriptions
for 743 different songs, including 292 in the studied period of 1958-1971. The chronological
distribution of the 292 songs is presented in Table 1.
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Table 1: Distribution by year of Songs in the Billboard DataSet for 1958-1971.
Year
1958
1959
1960
1961
1962
1963
1964
1965
1966
1967
1968
1969
1970
1971
Number of Transcribed Songs
7
14
9
20
27
20
25
20
18
28
26
24
22
32
The transcriptions were created in plain-text format. Each file starts with a header that
includes meta-information related to each song: title, artist, meter, and key. Those lines are preceded
by the comment character hash ( # ) to distinguish them from the actual annotation. The notational
system used is based on a standardized approach (Harte et al., 2005), with vertical slashes ( | ) used to
represent barlines. Each individual line of annotation is preceded by the timestamp of the beginning of
the phrase, expressed in seconds. Annotators could freely add other information before or after the
vertical slashes, such as form, instrumentation, etc.
This transcription format proved to be polyvalent yet created some obstacles. In order to
rapidly and automatically parse through the large number of transcriptions, a UNIX tool was created.
This script allows the user to use regular expression (regex, a character string used for patternmatching) to establish proper queries. However, since the files feature extra information such as audio
timing and annotators’ comments, reading a file as a long single line would fail to have the
progressions adjacent to one another. Therefore, the files were processed to remove all inessential
information: in every line that started with a comment character ( # ) as well as every blank line was
kept exactly the same, while in all other lines any characters not enclosed by vertical slashes were
removed.
Other problems were linked to using the script. Since the command searches strings of
characters, it was impossible in this transcription format to search for a single progression across songs
in different keys. Indeed, when dealing with strings of characters, “D:min7 G:7” in C is different from
“C:min7 F:7” in Bb, even though both progressions bear the same relation with their respective tonal
center. One way to overcome this problem is to convert the original transcriptions into a tonic-neutral
format, where the root of each chord is replaced with integer notation (where t and e stand for 10 and
11, respectively). The conversion was done automatically with a second script that relied on custom
dictionaries for every possible tonic, including enharmonic equivalence. The script would read the
tonic of each song, as notated in the header, decide which dictionary to use, and then convert every
root to its neutral equivalent. Songs featuring more than one tonal center (69 in total) were dealt with
manually—separated into single-tonic sections, converted using the same procedure, and then
reassembled. The newly formatted files were then saved using the same name as their original
counterpart, but with a different extension. The new files kept the information in the same order as the
original files, allowing the user to easily go back and forth between this format and the original
transcriptions. Figures 1.1 and 1.2 show an original transcription and a reformatted one for
comparison.
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Fig. 1.1. An excerpt of a transcription as presented originally in the Billboard DataSet.
Fig. 1.2. The transcription shown in Fig. 1.1 converted to a tonic-neutral format and cleaned of all nonessential information.
Subdividing the Corpus
In order to identify any significant changes in harmonic syntax throughout the studied time period, the
14-year time span was divided into two subspans of seven years each: the early 60s (1958-64) and the
late 60s (1965-71). Those two subspans contain 122 and 170 songs, respectively. This important
difference between the two subspans is due to two main factors. First, the Billboard Hot 100 charts
(and thus the database) started in August 1958, whereas all the other years start in January. This
explains why the year 1958 features only 7 songs. Second, the random sampling procedure used by
Burgoyne et al. created a discrepancy between the different years. Figure 2 reprints Figure 1 from
Burgoyne et al. (2011, p. 634) and explains in detail the sampling algorithm used to create the
database. While most years in the 14-year period under study feature between 20 and 30 songs, 1959
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and 1960 are outliers with 14 and 9 songs, respectively. Conversely, 1971 features 32 songs, which is
higher than average.
This important discrepancy between the two subspans had an impact on the methodology
used to analyze the data. Originally, a methodology was designed which aimed to look for gradual
linear changes across the whole 14-year period. However, considering that the number of songs
available for each year varies substantially, the results would have been distorted by this approach.
Instead, a methodology was used which compared the early 60s with the late 60s, avoiding
oversampling any single year due to a larger number of songs in the database for that year, and instead
considered broader changes between the beginning and the end of the decade.
Fig. 2. Sampling algorithm for the Billboard DataSet. Reproduced from Burgoyne et al. (2011).
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RESULTS
Study 1: Evaluating Modulation Frequency
The first study focused on modulation. In order to find the number of modulating songs, every file
featuring the character string “tonic:” more than once was counted. For example, Jan & Dean’s
Sidewalk Surfin’, previously presented in Figures 1.1 and 1.2, features two tonics, D and Eb, and so
would qualify as a modulating song. Out of the 292 songs searched, 31 multi-tonic songs were found.
Figures 3.1. and 3.2 present the distribution of the results.
100%
Distribution of Single- and Multi-Tonic Songs
Results
80%
60%
Single-Tonic
Songs
40%
Multi-Tonic
Songs
20%
0%
1958-64
1965-71
Fig. 3.1. Distribution of single- and multi-tonic songs in the Billboard DataSet between 1958 and
1971, arranged in five-year bins.
25%
Results
20%
15%
Multi-Tonic
Songs
10%
5%
0%
1958
1960
1962
1964
1966
1968
1970
Fig. 3.2. Frequency of multi-tonic songs in the Billboard DataSet between 1958 and 1971, plotted by
year.
Using a chi-squared test at a confidence level established at 99%, the difference between the
number of multi-tonic songs found in 1958-64 and 1965-71 was not statistically significant (χ2= 3.78;
df=1; p=.05). As such, there appears to be no significant change in the frequency of multi-tonic songs
over time.
Study 2: Evaluating Chord Frequency
The second study focused on the frequency of flat-side harmonies over time. For the sake of
comparison, the frequency of 24 different chords was considered (12 chromatic roots, with either
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major or minor triads). Table 2 shows the overall proportion of songs featuring those chords in each
subcategory (i.e 1958-64 and 1965-71). The results for each subcategory were then compared with one
another, again using a chi-squared test with a confidence level of 99%. Note that no significance test
was done on chords featuring in less than 5% of the corpus (i.e. bii, biii, #IV, #iv, bvi, bvii, VII, vii), as
the data collected for those chords was deemed to small to be representative. Due to the way truckdriver’s modulations were notated in the Billboard DataSet, many chords immediately preceding a new
tonic were originally notated as bVI in the original key, but acted as a tonicization of the tonic in the
following key (e.g. V-I in the new key). To address this notational problem, multi-tonic songs
featuring at least one bVI chord were manually verified. Songs where the only bVI chord present was
immediately before a truck-driver’s modulation were not taken into account in the following table.
Admittedly, this creates a bias in the data. However, considering that there is no significant difference
in the distribution of multi-tonic songs between the early and late 60s, the bias created appears to be
less intrusive than the one created by the original notational process.
The results are summarized in the third column of Table 2. Starred (*) p values indicate
statistical significance at the 99% confidence level.
Table 2: Distribution of songs featuring specific chords (in percentage).
I i bII bii II ii bIII biii III iii IV iv #IV #iv V v bVI bvi VI vi bVII bvii VII vii Early 60s (1958-64) 98.36%
5.06%
8.2%
0%
37.71%
33.61%
10.66%
2.46%
19.67%
19.67%
89.34%
13.14%
4.91%
1.64%
96.72%
5.74%
9.84%
0%
17.21%
47.54%
13.93%
0.82%
4.92%
0.82%
Late 60s (1965-71) 85.29%
22.36%
5.88%
0.59%
29.41%
35.29%
28.24%
4.92%
18.82%
20.59%
83.52%
21.18%
2.36%
0%
80.59%
15.88%
21.77%
1.18%
18.24%
39.41%
39.41%
2.35%
3.52%
2.29%
Results χ2=14.45; df=1; p<.01*
χ2=15.04; df=1; p<.01*
χ2<.01; df=1; p=.96
N/A
χ 2=2.21; df=1; p=.14
χ2=0.09; df=1; p=.77
χ2=13.28; df=1; p<.01*
N/A
χ2=.03; df=1; p=.86
χ2=.04; df=1; p=.85
χ2=1.99; df=1; p=.16
χ2=2.51; df=1; p=.11
N/A
N/A
χ2=16.71; df=1; p<.01*
χ2=7.11; df=1; p=.01*
χ2=7.24; df=1; p<.01*
N/A
χ2=.05; df=1; p=.82
χ2=1.92; df=1; p=.17
χ2=22.5; df=1; p<.01*
N/A
N/A
N/A
The results presented above are consistent with the proposed hypothesis that songs featuring
flat-side harmonies (i.e. bIII, bVI, bVII) increase in frequency over the studied time period.
DISCUSSION
The hypothesis for the first study arose from a simple premise: in order to move from craftspeople to
artists, songwriters may have experimented with different compositional devices. As such, it appeared
reasonable to question whether modulation was one such device. However, as the results of Study 1
showed, no significant change occurred between the early 60s and the late 60s.
Looking at the results in more detail, three different types of modulations can be distinguished.
The first type, though sometimes bearing different names, is the truck driver’s modulation: “a sudden
shift from one tonal center to another—usually a half step [but sometimes a full step]—that is not
functionally related to the first.” (Everett, 1997, p. 118, comment in brackets mine). A second type of
modulation can be described as a sectional modulation, where a specific section of a song is in a
different key from the rest of the piece. With this type of modulation, a song begins and ends in the
same tonality. A third type occurs when a song changes key permanently, but with a modulation that is
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not a semitone or a tone. The distribution of these three types of modulation over the 31 multi-tonic
songs found
between 1958
and 1971 is presented
in Figure
Distribution
of Multi-Tonic
Songs, per
Type 4.
of Modulation
Truck Driver’s
Modulation
Other
Sectional Modulation
Fig. 4. Distribution of 31 multi-tonic songs between 1958-1971: Truck Driver’s Modulation (28 songs,
90.32%); Sectional Modulation (2 songs, 6.45%); Other (1 song, 3.23%).
As shown in Figure 4, the truck driver’s modulation is the most frequently used modulation
technique between 1958 and 1971. The majority of the songs (23 songs, 82.14%) featuring this type of
modulation only modulate once, while songs modulating two (3 songs, 10.71%) or three times (2
songs, 7.14%) are far less frequent. It also appears to be very infrequent for multi-tonic songs with
truck driver’s modulation to feature both modulations by semitone and by tone (1 song, 3.57%).
Although the hypothesis for the second study focused on only flat-side harmonies, the
frequency of songs featuring 24 different chords was analyzed. As hypothesized, bIII, bVI, and bVII
occurred in a significantly greater number of songs in the second half of the decade. A decrease was
observed of roughly 15 % in songs featuring major tonic chords (i.e. I), matched by a similar increase
in songs featuring minor tonic chords (i.e. i); moreover, minor dominant chords (i.e. v) also increased
in frequency in the later 60s. Although it is not possible at this point to conclude that there is a
correlation between both results, it would be worthwhile to follow this lead in future work and
investigate whether minor songs become statistically more frequent in the second half of the decade.
Investigating Chord Patterns
Considering that bIII, bVI, and bVII became more prominent during the second half of the decade, it
would be interesting to examine the harmonic context in which they were used. In their study using the
Rolling Stone corpus, de Clercq and Temperley (2011) investigated the “frequency of relative-root
‘trigrams,’” using this term to describe “groups of three adjacent chords” (p. 63). Table 3, reprinted
from de Clercq and Temperley (2011), shows the most frequent harmonic trigrams ending with a tonic
chord, for the 1950s through to the 1990s.
Table 3: Distribution of songs from de Clerq and Temperley’s (2011) Rolling Stone corpus with
harmonic trigrams ending in the tonic (and not beginning in tonic), in descending order of frequency
(reproduced from de Clercq and Temperley, 2011, Table 7).
Trigram
Instances
IV V I
352
V IV I
292
bVII IV I
146
VI IV I
126
bVII bVI I
103
bIII bVI I
66
II V I
63
bVI bVII I
60
V VI I
42
IV bVII I
39
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A similar approach was taken to observe the harmonic syntax involving flat-side harmonies.
Using the chords presented in Table 2, every possible permutation featuring at least bIII, bVI, or bVII,
and ending with a tonic chord was used to parse the database. However, the methodology differed from
the one used by de Clercq and Temperley in two ways: chord mode (major or minor) was taken into
account instead of only relative-root motion, and the number of songs featuring a specific progression
was calculated, instead of instances of said progression. Chords could occur as simple triads or
ornamented with extensions (e.g. maj6, maj7, add9). Moreover, major triads could also occur as
dominant seventh or dominant ninth chords. Open-fifth chords (“power chords”) were not taken into
consideration. The parser was designed to look for continuous strings of characters; as such the search
mechanism avoided progressions running over modulations, as both tonalities in the transcription file
were separated by a comment line indicating the new key, as shown in Figure 1.2 (e.g. #tonic: Eb). For
this reason, the line preceding the comment line may display some odd progressions, as the last chord
of such lines is usually used to modulate to the new key. However, since the number of songs featuring
a specific progression was taken into account, and not the specific instances of a progression, this
potential distortion did not affect the parsing process. The results for the 1958-72 period are presented
in Table 4.
Table 4: Distribution of songs from the Billboard DataSet with harmonic trigrams ending in tonic (and
not beginning in tonic) and featuring at least one flat-side harmony, in descending order of frequency.
Trigram
bVII IV I
bVII V I
bIII IV I
bVI V i
bIII V I
bVI V I
Early 60s (1958-64)
0
4
1
0
1
3
Late 60s (1965-71)
14
8
4
5
3
1
Total
14
12
5
5
4
4
The table presented above gives us a more detailed account of how flat-side harmonies were
used during the decade. Although it has been established previously that all three flat-side chords (i.e.
bIII, bVI, bVII) increased significantly in frequency throughout the decade, there is a clear preference
for the bVII-IV-I trigram. This progression is often referred to as a double plagal progression, as the
movement from bVII to IV imitates the plagal movement going from IV to I, as Everett explains:
In the double plagal progression a chain of descending fourth emerges, with a
major IV of IV created by lowering the root of a vii chord to b7, creating the bVIIIV-I motion […] In this chord succession, bVII resolves to IV with a transposed
version of the same descending neighbour motions (here 2-1 and b7-6) used by IV
in resolving to I (6-5 and 4-3). Originally appearing in 1957-60 as an ornamental
guitar figure […], this function emerged in broader rhythms in the soul music of
late 1964 […] and early 1965 […] to become rock mainstay. (2009, p. 274).
Everett’s comments match very closely the results of this study, with the emergence of the
double plagal progression during the late 60s. His description also exemplifies the modal aspect of the
rock genre, suggesting a mixolydian sound created through the flattening of scale degree 7. The plagal
direction of this progression also matches Stephenson’s (2001) theory that, “[w]ith regard to harmonic
succession, as with cadence placement, rock has, from its beginning, used a style opposed to that of
common practice, a style that became increasingly standard during the late 1950s and the 1960s” (p.
103).
Other theorists have seen tonal processes in rock, despite its modal characteristics. For
example, Biamonte (2010) has described how bVII-IV-I, along with the Aeolian progression bVIbVII-I, tends to behave tonally: “Although their pitch syntax is not diatonically tonal, in many cases
these two characteristic chord patterns express traditional tonal functions such as tonic prolongation
and dominant preparation, both of which are often accomplished through elaboration of the tonic by
subdominant harmony and cadential resolution.” (p. 98).[5] This dual nature of the progression, a
modal sound behaving tonally, may explain, at least partially, why this specific pattern was
significantly favored over other progressions featuring flat-side harmonies, as it serves as a bridge
between common and new practices.
The second most frequent trigram, bVII-V-I, is a modally-mixed progression particularly
noticeable for its cross-relation between the flat and natural scale degree seven. This type of crossrelation occurs frequently in progressions using flat-side harmonies, and mostly results from guitar223
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oriented gestures, using parallel barre chords up and down the fretboard. In an article discussing the
topography of the guitar and its impact on pop-rock music, Koozin (2011) showed how “physical
constraints inherent in guitar playing may shape musical material” (par. 23). Indeed, the same
phenomenon happens with bIII-IV-I, bIII-V-I, and bVI-V-I. This reflects the idea that throughout the
1960s, music shifted from being primarily composed on the keyboard to being primarily composed on
the guitar. This new practice became heavily associated with rock, so much so that by the late 1970s,
“pop” referred to keyboard-based music while “rock” referred to guitar-based music. (Nobile, 2014, p.
8).
CONCLUSION
The goal of carrying out the studies presented in this paper was to test whether significant changes in
harmonic practices during the 1960s matched the attitudinal shift discussed by popular music scholars.
Two studies were conducted, the first focusing on modulating songs, the second focusing on flat-side
harmonies. Although the results showed no significant difference between the use of modulation in the
first and second half of the decade, there was a significant increase in frequency of flat-side harmonies
in the second half of the decade, as hypothesized. However, it would be misleading to assume that this
new genre, rock, and its new harmonic practices took over the entire popular music world. Though a
new harmonic practice seems to be emerging during the studied period, it does not appear to replace
more traditional diatonic harmony, but rather coexists with it. For example, the results presented in
Table 4 show bVII-IV-I as the most frequent progression using a flat-side harmony, but the frequency
of this progression is still relatively marginal, with only 14 songs out of 170 (8.24%) featuring this
progression. By comparison, IV-V-I and V-IV-I, the two most popular diatonic trigrams identified by
de Clercq and Temperley in Table 3, were featured in 91 (53.53%) and 50 (29.41%) songs,
respectively. Furthermore, although flat-side harmonies increased in frequency through the decade,
they did not do so through clearly established idiomatic progressions, bVII-IV-I and, to a lesser extent,
bVII-V-I being exceptions. What may be misleading, then, is the tendency to consider harmonic
progressions or songs that were historically significant the norm of a certain time period. Lists such as
Rolling Stone’s “500 Greatest Songs of All Time,” used by de Clercq and Temperley (2011; 2013), are
useful to study characteristic tendencies of a specific genre, but fail to give a clear image of a time
period as they present songs that were considered historically important a posteriori, and as such, are
biased towards innovative or long-lasting, successful songs. When looking at the results presented
here, based on a corpus of songs deemed popular in their own time, the attitudinal shift discussed by
some scholars appears to be matched with new harmonic practices. However, those new practices
established themselves over time.
The two studies presented here focused on very specific aspects of harmonic syntax:
modulation and flat-side harmonies. Yet, in order to have a better understanding of the evolution of
musical tendencies, other aspects would benefit from a similar empirical approach. Broadening the
queries to include progressions that do not necessarily feature tonic chords would help to provide a
clearer image of harmonic practices. Similarly, secondary parameters such as hypermeter, form[6],
rhythm, and timbre, should be taken into consideration. Although some scholars have looked
empirically at those parameters (see Huron & Ommen, 2006; Serrà, et al., 2012; Biamonte, 2014), they
still remain largely under-researched.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This research project was supported by grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research
Council of Canada and the Fonds de recherche du Québec - Société et culture. Special thanks go to
Nicole Biamonte and Jonathan Wild for their valuable help.
NOTES
[1]
Email
correspondence
can
[email protected]
be
addressed
to
Hubert
Léveillé
Gauvin
at
[2] Burgoyne et al. explain the basis of the chronological span of this corpus as follows: “The date of
the first chart, 4 August 1958, is a natural starting date for selecting songs, but choosing an end date is
less straightforward. Hip-hop music does not lend itself readily to harmonic analysis as traditionally
understood, and because hip-hop became more popular in the 1990s and 2000s, a larger portion of the
music on the ‘Hot 100’ chart from these periods falls out of the scope of the data set. Furthermore,
there have been several changes to the formula for computing the ‘Hot 100’ over time, including a
particularly significant shift in December 1991 […]” (Burgoyne, et al., 2011, p. 634)
224
Vol. 10, No. 3, 2015
[3] Since the publication of their article in 2011, de Clercq and Temperley have expanded their corpus
to 200 songs (Temperley & de Clercq, 2013).
[4] Throughout this paper, roman numeral are shown in relation to major, an approach used by
Biamonte (2010), Temperley (2011), de Clercq (2012), Nobile (2014), among many others.
[5] For a more thorough discussion on double plagal progressions, see Everett, 2001, 2004; Carter,
2005; Spicer, 2005; Biamonte, 2010.
[6] Although the annotators working on the Billboard DataSet were encouraged to “use free comments
in particular to denote major structural features such as verses, bridges, and choruses” (Burgoyne,
2011, p. 194), those formal labels were not properly curated, which make their use obsolete for
anything other then informal discussion.
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dissertation). McGill University, Montreal.
Burgoyne, J.A., Wild, J., & Fujinaga, I. (2011). An expert ground-truth set for audio chord recognition
and music analysis. In A. Klapuri & C. Leider (Eds.), Proceedings of the 12th International Society for
Music Information Retrieval Conference (pp. 633-638). Miami, Florida: University of Miami.
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de Clercq, T. (2012). Sections and successions in successful songs: A prototype approach to form in
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de Clercq, T., & Temperley, D. (2011). A corpus analysis of rock harmony. Popular Music, 30(1), 47–
70.
Everett, W. (1997). Swallowed by a song: Paul Simon's crisis of chromaticism. In J. Covach & G. M.
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Everett, W. (2001). The Beatles as Musicians: The Quarry Men through Rubber Soul. Oxford: Oxford
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Everett, W. (2004). Making sense of rock's tonal systems. Music Theory Online, 10(4). Retrieved from
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1890–1939. Music Theory Spectrum, 28(2), 211-31.
Koozin, T. (2011). Guitar voicing in pop-rock music: A performance-based analytical approach. Music
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Moore, A. (1992). Patterns of harmony. Popular Music, 11(1), 73-106.
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Journal of New Music Research. 2(3), 187-204.
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Popular Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
APPENDIX
Songs Featured in the 1958-1971 Sub-Corpus
Year Artist
Title
1958 Count Basie
Going to Chicago
1958 Chuck Berry
Sweet Little Rock And Roll
1958 Johnny Cash
The Ways of a Woman
1958 Jimmy Clanton
Just A Dream
1958 The Everly Brothers
Bird Song
1958 Peggy Lee
Fever
1958 Louis Prima & Keely Smith
That Old Black Magic
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1959 LaVern Baker
I Cried a Tear
1959 Rod Bernard
This Should Go On Forever
1959 Chuck Berry
Almost Grown
1959 Johnny Cash
I Got Stripes
1959 Ray Charles
(Night Time is) The Right Time
1959 Fats Domino
Be My Guest
1959 Fats Domino
I Want to Walk You Home
1959 Johnny Horton
The Battle of New Orleans
1959 Johnny Horton
Johnny Reb
1960 Brenda Lee
Sweet Nothin’s
1959 Elvis Presley
My Wish Came True
1959 Elvis Presley
One Night
1959 Cliff Richard
Living Doll
1959 Santo & Johnny
Sleep Walk
1959 Dinah Washington
Unforgettable
1960 Floyd Cramer
Last Date
1960 Bing Crosby
Silent Night
1960 Dion
Where or When
1960 Jimmy Jones
Handy Man
1960 Jimmy Reed
Baby What You Want Me to Do
1960 Charlie Rich
Lonely Weekends
1960 Marty Robins
Big Iron
1960 The Ventures
Perfidia
1961 Gary U.S. Bonds
Quarter to Three
1961 James Brown
Baby, You’re Right
1961 James Brown
I Don’t Mind
1961 The Crystals
(There’s No Other) Like My Baby
1961 Dion
Runaround Sue
1961 Roy Drusky
Three Hearts in a Tangle
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Ebony Eyes
Walk Right Back
1961 Don Gibson
Sea of Heartbreak
1961 Etta James
Fool That I Am
1961 Ben E. King
Amor
1961 Brenda Lee
Dum Dum
1961 The Miracles
Mighty Good Lovin’
1961 Gene Pitney
Town Without Pity
1961 Elvis Presley
(Marie is the Name) His Latest Flame
1961 Elvis Presley
Little Sister
1961 The Shirelles
Will You Love Me Tomorrow?
1961 The String-A-Longs
Wheels
1961 Johnny Tillotson
Jimmy’s Girl
1961 Ike & Tina Turner
It’s Gonna Work Out Fine
1962 Paul Anka
Love Me Warm and Tender
1962 The Beach Boys
Surfin’ Safari
1962 Bruce Chanel
Hey! Baby
1962 Chubby Checker
The Twist
1962 Nat “King” Cole
Ramblin’ Rose
1962 The Contours
Do You Love Me?
1962 Bing Crosby
White Christmas
1962 The Crystals
He’s a Rebel
1962 Bo Diddley
You Can’t Judge a Book by the Cover
1962 Dion
(I Was) Born to Cry
1962 Dion
Love Came to Me
1962 Dion
Lovers Who Wander
1962 The Falcons
I Found a Love
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That’s Old Fashioned (That’s the Way Love Should Be)
1962 Eddie Holland
Jamie
1962 Etta James
Stop the Wedding
1962 Gladys Knight & The Pips
Letter Full of Tears
1962 Brenda Lee
All Alone Am I
1962 Brenda Lee
Everybody Loves Me But You
1962 Brenda Lee
Heart in Hand
1962 Little Joey & The Flips
Bongo Stomp
1962 Jimmy Smith
Walk on the Wild Side (Part 1)
1962 Hank Snow
I’ve Been Everywhere
1962 Bertha Tillman
Oh My Angel
It Keeps Right On A-Hurtin’
1962 Mel Torme
Comin’ Home Baby
1962 Dinah Washington
Where Are You?
1963 LaVern Baker
See See Rider
1963 Bobby Bare
Detroit City
1963 The Beach Boys
In My Room
1963 Solomon Burke
If You Need Me
1963 The Chiffons
He’s So Fine
1963 Nat “King” Cole
Those Lazy-Hazy-Crazy Days of Summer
1963 Dion
Ruby Baby
1963 Dion
This Little Girl
1963 The Drifters
On Broadway
1963 Dave Dudley
Six Days on the Road
1963 The Fireballs
Sugar Shack
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1963 Etta James
Would It Make Any Difference to You?
1963 Chris Kenner
Land of the 1000 Dances
1963 Brenda Lee
Loosing You
1963 Barbara Lewis
Hello Stranger
1963 The Moments
Walk Right In
1963 The Ronettes
Be My Baby
Out of My Mind
Talk Back Trembling Lips
1963 Jackie Wilson
Baby Workout
1964 Louis Armstong
Hello Dolly!
1964 The Beach Boys
Wendy
1964 The Beatles
A Hard Day’s Night
1964 The Beatles
Do You Want to Know a Secret?
1964 The Beatles
I Saw Her Standing There
1964 The Beatles
Love Me Do
1964 The Beatles
She’s a Woman
1964 Jan & Dean
Sidewalk Surfin’
1964 Jan & Dean
The Anaheim, Azusa & Cucamonga Sewing Circle, Book
Review And Timing Association
1964 Jan & Dean
The Little Old Lady (From Pasadena)
1964 Lesley Gore
You Don’t Own Me
1964 B.B. King
How Blue Can You Get?
1964 Brenda Lee
As Usual
1964 Dean Martin
Everybody Loves Somebody
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1964 Willie Mitchell
20-75
1964 Elvis Presley
Ask Me
1964 Ottis Redding
Chained and Bound
1964 The Rolling Stones
Not Fade Away
Time Is On My Side
1964 Barbara Streisand
Funny Girl
1964 Barbara Streisand
People
1964 Irma Thomas
Wish Someone Would Care
I Rise, I Fall
Worried Guy
1964 J. Frank Wilson & The Cavaliers
Last Kiss
1965 Joan Baez
There But For Fortune
1965 Fontella Bass
Rescue Me
1965 The Beatles
Eight Days a Week
1965 The Beatles
Help!
1965 The Beatles
I Don’t Want to Spoil the Party
1965 James Brown
I Got You (I Feel Good)
1965 The Castaways
Liar, Liar
1965 Ray Charles
Crying Time
1965 Roy Head
Treat Her Right
1965 Brenda Lee
Too Many Rivers
1965 Martha & The Vandellas
Nowhere to Run
1965 Bobbi Martin
I Love You So
1965 Dean Martin
I Will
1965 Buck Owens
I’ve Got a Tiger by the Tail
1965 Wilson Pickett
In the Midnight Hour
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Vol. 10, No. 3, 2015
1965 Otis Redding
I’ve Been Loving You Too Long (To Stop Now)
1965 The Righteous Brothers
Unchained Melody
1965 Simon & Garfunkel
The Sounds of Silence
1965 Sonny & Cher
Baby Don’t Go
1965 The Yardbirds
Heart Full of Soul
1966 The Byrds
Eight Miles High
1966 Ray Charles
Let’s Go Get Stoned
1966 The Chiffons
Sweet Talkin’ Guy
1966 Bobby Darin
If I Were a Carpenter
1966 Donovan
Sunshine Superman
1966 The Kinks
‘Till the End of the Day
1966 Brenda Lee
Coming On Strong
1966 Roger Miller
You Can’t Roller Skate in a Buffalo Herd
1966 Aaron Neville
Tell It Like It Is
1966 Buck Owens
Think of Me
1966 Paul Revere & The Raiders
Kicks
1966 The Righteous Brothers
(You’re My) Soul and Inspiration
Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing In The
Shadow?
A Hazy Shade of Winter
1966 Nancy Sinatra
These Boots Are Made For Walkin’
1966 Swingin’ Medallions
Double Shot (Of My Baby’s Love)
1966 The Temptations
Ain’t Too Proud to Beg
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1966 The Yardbirds
Shape of Things
1967 James Brown
Cold Sweat – Part 1
1967 The 5th Dimension
Go Where You Wanna Go
1967 The Animals
San Franciscan Nights
1967 The Buckinghams
Kind of a Drag
1967 The Byrds
Goin’ Back
1967 Arthur Conley
Sweet Soul Musi
1967 The Electric Prunes
I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)
1967 The Four Tops
Standing in the Shadows of Love
1967 Aretha Franklin
Chain of Fools
1967 Aretha Franklin
I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)
1967 Marvin Gaye & Tami Terrell
If I Could Build My Whole World Around You
1967 Marvin Gaye & Kim Weston
It Takes Two
1967 Lesley Gore
California Nights
1967 The Hollies
Carrie-Ann
1967 The Music Explosion
Little Bit O’ Soul
1967 The Music Machine
The People in Me
1967 Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
Buy For Me the Rain
1967 Roy Orbison
Cry Softly Lonely One
1967 Wilson Pickett
I’m in Love
1967 Wilson Pickett
Soul Dance Number Three
1967 Elvis Presley
Judy
Dandelion
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1967 Jimmy Ruffin
I’ve Passed This Way Before
1967 Sagittarius
My World Fell
Fakin’ It
1967 Sopwith Camel
Hello Hello
1967 The Turtles
Happy Together
1967 The Who
Happy Jack
1968 The Amboy Dukes
Journey to the Center of the Mind
1968 Blue Cheer
Summertime Blues
1968 The Box Tops
Cry Like a Baby
1968 Canned Heat
On the Road Again
1968 Clarence Carter
Too Weak to Fight
1968 Ray Charles
Eleanor Rigby
1968 Joe Cocker
With a Little Help From My Friend
1968 Cream
Sunshine of Your Love
1968 Creedence Clearwater Revival
I Put a Spell on You
1968 Dion
Abraham, Martin and John
1968 Flatt & Scruggs
Foggy Mountain Breakdown
1968 Max Frost & The Troopers
Shape of Things to Come
1968 Iron Butterfly
In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida
1968 Tommy James
Mony Mony
1968 The Miracles
I Second That Emotion
1968 Wilson Pickett
I Found a True Love
1968 Elvis Presley
Guitar Man
1968 Elvis Presley
If I Can Dream
1968 The Rascals
People Got to Be Free
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Vol. 10, No. 3, 2015
1968 Otis Redding
(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay
1968 Marty Robbins
I Walk Alone
Mrs. Robinson
1968 Steppenwolf
Born to be Wild
1968 The Temptations
I Wish It Would Rain
1968 B.J. Thomas
Hooked On a Feeling
1968 Jerry Jeff Walker
Mr. Bojangles
1969 Badfinger
Maybe Tomorrow
1969 The Beach Boys
Bluebirds Over the Mountain
1969 The Beatles
Come Together
1969 Brother Jack McDuff
Them From Electric Surfboard
1969 Glen Campbell
Galveston
1969 Glen Campbell
Wichita Lineman
1969 Jimmy Cliff
Wonderful World, Beautiful People
1969 The Cowsills
Hair
1969 The Cowsills
Silver Threads and Golden Needles
1969 Creedence Clearwater Revival
Bad Moon Rising
1969 Crosby, Stills & Nash
Judy Blue Eyes
1969 The Isley Brothers
It’s Your Thing
1969 The Jacksons
I Want You Back
1969 Tommy James
Crystal Blue Persuasion
1969 Janis Joplin
Kozmic Blues
1969 Little Anthony & The Imperials
Out of Sight, Out of Mind
1969 Peggy Lee
Is That All There Is?
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Vol. 10, No. 3, 2015
1969 The Miracles
Baby, Baby Don’t Cry
1969 Oliver
Good Morning Starshine
Honky Tonk Women
1969 Sly & The Family Stone
Hot Fun In the Summertime
1969 Sly & The Family Stone
I Want to Take You Higher
1969 The Who
Pinball Wizard
1969 The Youngbloods
Get Together
1970 James Brown
Get Up (I Feel Like a) Sex Machine – Part 1
1970 Glen Campbell
It’s Only Make Believe
1970 Canned Heat
Let’s Work Together
1970 Clarence Carter
Patches
1970 Chicago
25 or 6 to 4
1970 Chicago
Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?
1970 Chicago
Make Me Smile
1970 Crosby, Stills & Nash
Teach Your Children
1970 B.B. King
The Thrill Is Gone
1970 The Meters
Look-Ka Py Py
1970 Elvis Presley
I Really Don’t Want to Know
1970 Ray Price
For the Good Times
1970 Rare Earth
Get Ready
1970 Jimmy & David Ruffin
Stand By Me
1970 Santana
Evil Ways
Cecilia
El Condor Pasa
1970 Edwin Starr
War
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Vol. 10, No. 3, 2015
1970 The Supremes
Stoned Love
1970 R. Dean Taylor
Indiana Wants Me
1970 The Tee Set
Ma Belle Amie
1970 Ike & Tina Turner
I Want to Take You Higher
Never My Love
One Less Bell to Answer
1971 The Band
Life Is a Carnival
1971 Bread
If
1971 Cornelius Brothers & Sister Rose
Treat Her Like a Lady
1971 The Doors
Riders of the Storm
1971 Emerson, Lake & Palmer
Lucky Man
1971 Five Man Electric Band
Absolutely Right
1971 Isaac Hayes
The Look of Love
1971 Jimi Hendrix
Freedom
1971 Elton John
Levon
1971 Tom Jones
She’s a Lady
1971 Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway You’ve Got a Friend
1971 Marvin Gaye
Mercy Mercy me (The Ecology)
1971 Tom T. Hall
The Year That Clayton Delaney Died
1971 Gladys Knight & The Pips
If I Were Your Woman
1971 Kris Kristofferson
Loving Her Was Easier
1971 The Miracles
I Don’t Blame You at All
1971 Graham Nash
Chicago
1971 Ocean
Put Your Hand in the Hand
1971 The Osmonds
One Bad Apple
237
Vol. 10, No. 3, 2015
1971 Wilson Pickett
Don’t Knock My Love – Part 1
1971 Elvis Presley
There Goes My Everything
1971 Jerry Reed
Ko-Ko Joe
Wild Horses
1971 Sonny & Cher
All I Ever Need Is You
1971 Rod Stewart
Maggie May
1971 James Taylor
Country Road
1971 Ten Years After
I’d Love to Change the World
1971 Bill Withers
Ain’t No Sunshine
1971 Bobby Womack
That’s the Way I Feel About Cha
1971 Stevie Wonder
If You Really Love Me
238

The Times They Were A-Changin

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